Discuss: Does the age when you became fat mean anything?

I'm wondering because I know I've been fat since I was 8. I'm 40 and I've been fat for 32 years. I wonder if that makes the weight loss journey any different from someone who, say, gained it all after becoming an adult.

What do you think?

I think it's absolutely different. The people who gained their weight as an adult know what it felt like to be a normal weight. They experienced life as a non-obese person and I'm assuming want to get back to that.

On the other hand, people like you and I have been fat for our entire lives. I don't know what it's like to be thin or even just chubby. I've never gotten to experience that life. For me, "normal life" has always involved me being 300-400 pounds. So when I lose this weight, it'll be a brand new experience and I look forward to it.

In a new study discussed in Nature, a team has found that there is a direct correlation between the measures of fat mass (measured from body mass index (BMI) and fat cell volume in subcutaneous fat, which represents about 80 percent of all fat, and visceral fat.

Radioactive carbon-14 produced by above-ground nuclear testing in the 1950s and '60s has helped researchers determine that the number of fat cells in a human's body, whether lean or obese, is established during the teenage years. Changes in fat mass in adulthood can be attributed mainly to changes in fat cell volume, not an increase in the actual number of fat cells.

A fat adult who was fat as a child not only has a lot of fat volume in each cell but has MORE fat cells than a fat adult who was normal weight as a child.   So yes us lucky ones who were fat children get the DOUBLE WHAMMY!

Well, then someone's going to have to develop a liposuction machine the size of a shop vac just to deal with my extra fat cells.

Plastic surgery is our only hope!

I don't know if it means anything, but I know for me personally it will mean a life I've never experienced. While I am very excited to find out what will mean I am also terrified.  I am terrified that I will be successful, terrified I will fail, terrified I will regain, and terrified I will be successful, but unhappy.  I have no idea what lays ahead and that scares me most.  If I had gained as an adult I may have an idea of what experience may lay ahead, but I have none.  the last time I shopped in a normal store was Learner's when I was 12.( which was really an adult store so still not really normal)  I don't think I have ever not been the fattest person in a room.

I had a teeny taste of this the last time I lost weight. I don't know if it was my weight loss or the resulting increase in confidence.Total strangers looked me in the eye and said "hi". Guys held doors open for me (in California! -- I know it's different in other parts of the country). One of my coworkers became a tremendous flirt -- not a good thing when you have the finely honed male-female relationship knowledge of a 13-year-old girl. That was a total disaster!

LOL! And I totally know about the shopping thing. I went from Sear's pretty and plump right into the women's department at K Mart. I was never able to wear the cool clothes in high school. Everyone else was wearing skin tight Levi's button fly jeans and I was wearing my mother's polyester mom pants because they were the only thing that fit.

It'll be a wild and fun ride for us both!!

I'm sure with you on that!  Pictures of me as a child show me chubby since about 8 also!  I lost down to 210 on optifast in 1988, but gained even more back.  I felt pretty good for a while back then.   ditto on the way people treat fat people.  I hate that.

Do you think we've developed these super outgoing personalities to compensate for being so fat? I am quiet in a few situations, but generally speaking, I can control a room. I joke; I charm; I try to make people feel at home. I'm BIGGER than life.

I hope someday to be a calmer, quietly confident woman who doesn't need to be the center of attention all the time. I look forward to a time when I can sit in a room of people and feel COMFORTABLE in my chair!!

Yep, I think these extra fat cells will be calling out to be filled back up and we'll have to expend extra effort to keep them deflated, but we can do it. We have to outsmart the fat cells.

Ronda, I know exactly what you mean about the joking, charming and making people feel at home and being BIGGER than life.  But, I for one, DONT want to someday be a calmer, quietly confident woman.  Lose over 200 pounds and do a 180 on my personality, I just wouldn't be me anymore, and DARN IT, I like me, even at 400+!!!!  But we will outsmart those fat cells. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!  

Well that's true, Donna. If we lose all this weight and then  become quieter, people will start to worry about us. I don't see me changing all that much and I've had pretty good results with my outgoing personality. I do think I could be a better listener and let others have a chance (a SMALL chance!) to talk more.

I hope we revisit this topic in a year to see if our personalities DO change any with the weight loss.

Just had turkey buffet at the assisted living place with my Mom. The food was really pretty good and I got some cornbread stuffing and gravy but don't have leftovers to tempt me. Good day so far.